Aish.com's Game of Life

Here's a card game to play with your friends that's more satisfying than Trivial Pursuit.

The next time you invite your friends to spend an evening, instead of playing Trivial Pursuit or Gin Rummy, try this exciting new Aish.com card game. It's interesting, meaningful, and is guaranteed to spark a great discussion about what's most important in life.

Here's how to play:

1. Shuffle the index cards. (see list below)

2. Deal out 5 index cards to each player (face down), and place the remaining pile of cards face down in the middle. Each player should not show anyone his/her cards.

3. Each player will decide which card in his/her hand represents the least important item.

4. Each player in sequence discards one card (representing his/her least important item) face up in the middle of the table (for all players to see), and pick up one card from the deck.

5. Once all the cards in the deck have been taken, then each player continues to discard the least important card to him/her (in turn), until each player is left with only one card.

6. Each player then reveals his/her last card, and explains why it was determined to be the most important item.

7. The group collectively determines which is the most important item from among each player's final cards.

PREPARATION:

Write down each word from the list below on a different index card. You can modify this list by adding or subtracting items to better suit your group of friends.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 6

(6)
Anonymous,
February 4, 2014 4:50 PM

Awesome

This is awesome, but can you put the preparation in a downloadable pdf file where someone can print it out and cut the cards up?

(5)
Henry K,
July 24, 2006 12:00 AM

Yeshakoach! Meaningful and fun game!

Thanks Rabbi Z for all the meaning and wisdom you share with us all! Keep it up and may you go from strength-to-strength! Yeshakoach! Henry

(4)
Anonymous,
February 18, 2003 12:00 AM

Great Idea!! Thanks

(3)
Anonymous,
February 17, 2003 12:00 AM

GREAT!

What a wonderful thing for a family on Shabbos, a youth group of teens, etc. Yasher koach!!!

(2)
Jodi,
February 16, 2003 12:00 AM

Thank you!

While I love playing games, most games make me feel like I am pursuing trivia. Just the title of the game, "Trivial Pursuit" is a turn off for me. Chess and scrabble can be fun because of the skill involved but it really is still pursuing triviality. The game you have described sounds like lots of fun and at the same time it would make playing a game feel productive. Wonderful idea!

(1)
Anonymous,
February 16, 2003 12:00 AM

The new Aish.com card game idea is fantastic! I will use it to encourage discussion of the things that are really important in life at a Rosh Chodesh gathering, and other group activities.

I’m wondering what happened to the House of David. After the end of the Kingdom of Judah was there any memory what happened to King David’s descendants? Is there any family today which can trace its lineage to David – and whom the Messiah might descend from?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Thank you for your good question. There is no question that King David’s descendants are alive today. God promised David through Nathan the Prophet that the monarchy would never depart from his family (II Samuel 7:16). The prophets likewise foretell the ultimate coming of the Messiah, descendant of David, the “branch which will extend from the trunk of Jesse,” who will restore the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s sovereignty (Isaiah 11:1, see also Jeremiah 33:15, Ezekiel 37:25).

King David’s initial dynasty came to an end with the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile. In an earlier expulsion King Jehoiachin was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar, together with his family and several thousand of the Torah scholars and higher classes (II Kings 24:14-16). Eleven years later the Temple was destroyed. The final king of Judah, Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah, was too exiled to Babylonia. He was blinded and his children were executed (II Kings 25:7).

However, Jehoiachin and his descendants did survive in exile. Babylonian cuneiform records actually attest to Jehoiachin and his family receiving food rations from the government. I Chronicles 3:17:24 likewise lists several generations of his descendants (either 9 or 15 generations, depending on the precise interpretation of the verses), which would have extended well into the Second Temple era. (One was the notable Zerubbabel, grandson of Jehoiachin, who was one of the leaders of the return to Zion and the construction the Second Temple.)

In Babylonia, the leader of the Jewish community was known as the Reish Galuta (Aramaic for “head of the exile,” called the Exilarch in English). This was a hereditary position recognized by the Babylonian government. Its bearer was generally quite wealthy and powerful, well-connected to the government and wielding much authority over Babylonian Jewry.

According to Jewish tradition, the Exilarch was a direct descendant of Jehoiachin. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 5a) understands Genesis 49:10 – Jacob’s blessing to Judah that “the staff would not be removed from Judah” – as a reference to the Exilarchs in Babylonia, “who would chastise Israel with the staff,” i.e., who exercised temporal authority over the Jewish community. It stands to reason that these descendants of Judah were descendants of David’s house, who would have naturally been the leaders of the Babylonian community, in fulfillment of God’s promise to David that authority would always rest in his descendants.

There is also a chronological work, Seder Olam Zutta (an anonymous text from the early Middle Ages), which lists 39 generations of Exilarchs beginning with Jehoiachin. One of the commentators to Chronicles, the Vilna Gaon, states that the first one was Elionai of I Chronicles 3:23.

The position of Exilarch lasted for many centuries. The Reish Galuta is mentioned quite often in the Talmud. As can be expected, some were quite learned themselves, some deferred to the rabbis for religious matters, while some, especially in the later years, fought them and their authority tooth and nail.

Exilarchs existed well into the Middle Ages, throughout the period of the early medieval scholars known as the Gaonim. The last ones known to history was Hezekiah, who was killed in 1040 by the Babylonian authorities, although he was believed to have had sons who escaped to Iberia. There are likewise later historical references to descendants of the Exilarchs, especially in northern Spain (Catelonia) and southern France (Provence).

Beyond that, there is no concrete evidence as to the whereabouts of King David’s descendants. Supposedly, the great French medieval sage Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitzchaki) traced his lineage to King David, although on a maternal line. (In addition, Rashi himself had only daughters.) The same is said of Rabbi Yehuda Loewe of Prague (the Maharal). Since Ashkenazi Jews are so interrelated, this is a tradition, however dubious today, shared by many Ashkenazi Jews.

In any event, we do not need be concerned today how the Messiah son of David will be identified. He will be a prophet, second only to Moses. God Himself will select him and appoint him to his task. And he himself, with his Divine inspiration, will resolve all other matters of Jewish lineage (Maimonides Hilchot Melachim 12:3).

Yahrtzeit of Kalonymus Z. Wissotzky, a famous Russian Jewish philanthropist who died in 1904. Wissotzky once owned the tea concession for the Czar's entire military operation. Since the Czar's soldiers numbered in the millions and tea drinking was a daily Russian custom, this concession made Wissotzky very rich. One day, Wissotzky was approached by the World Zionist Organization to begin a tea business in Israel. He laughed at this preposterous idea: the market was small, the Turkish bureaucracy was strict, and tea leaves from India were too costly to import. Jewish leaders persisted, and Wissotzky started a small tea company in Israel. After his death, the tea company passed to his heirs. Then in 1917, the communists swept to power in Russia, seizing all of the Wissotzky company's assets. The only business left in their possession was the small tea company in Israel. The family fled Russia, built the Israeli business, and today Wissotzky is a leading brand of tea in Israel, with exports to countries worldwide -- including Russia.

Building by youth may be destructive, while when elders dismantle, it is constructive (Nedarim 40a).

It seems paradoxical, but it is true. We make the most important decisions of our lives when we are young and inexperienced, and our maximum wisdom comes at an age when our lives are essentially behind us, and no decisions of great moment remain to be made.

While the solution to this mystery eludes us, the facts are evident, and we would be wise to adapt to them. When we are young and inexperienced, we can ask our elders for their opinion and then benefit from their wisdom. When their advice does not coincide with what we think is best, we would do ourselves a great service if we deferred to their counsel.

It may not be popular to champion this concept. Although we have emerged from the era of the `60s, when accepting the opinion of anyone over thirty was anathema, the attitude of dismissing older people as antiquated and obsolete has-beens who lack the omniscience of computerized intelligence still lingers on.

Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. We would do well to swallow our youthful pride and benefit from the teachings of the school of experience.

Today I shall...

seek advice from my elders and give more serious consideration to deferring to their advice when it conflicts with my desires.

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